A.I Warning me to stay out of his ZOC when it is the one with a bunch of stuff in my ZOC.

I played yesterday as the Altarians. The Iridium at one point had about 4 starbases in my ZOC and about 6-8 armed ships in my ZOC. The Iridium kept popping up at every move to warn me to stay out of his ZOC. Something about his nervous advisors.

There should really be an option to counter what he says and list what he has in my ZOC.

I went to build a Starbase in his ZOC to see how he liked it. The Iridium complained at every turn about the presence of my starbase in their ZOC but there was no option to list what they had in mine.

Amid all the Iridium popups, there were a lot of popups from other civilizations warning me to stay on their side, many of which were not staying on their side. It probably isn't a good idea for the A.I to warn me to stay out of his backyard when he is trespassing in mine. I should be able to call the A.I on its hypocrisy.

The frequent popups were too annoying and repetitive. At one time the Krynn were demanding a tribute at every freaking turn. I couldn't find an option to demand one in return.

Is there any way to auto-deny subsequent tribute demands ?

I didn't get battle crashes this game so whatever was happening in the previous versions looks like it is fixed.

I got a different crash: I was in the menu option that lets me load/save a game when a pop-up occurred (a race demanding tribute). The game froze at this time.

He was requesting a ridiculous amount for those starbases. Fortunately I used the ideology bonus to convert them all back to my civilization.

His starbases did not produce enough influence to draw a border around his starbases. At that point half of the game board was in my ZOC. If I have the majority of the influence in an area ei: 91% versus his 9% it's pretty whose ZOC it is.

It is just too many pop-ups. It feels a bit like what some websites were like before pop-up blockers became common with browsers.

Also, if I denied the last 10 request for a tribute that a civilization has made, I don't see why it would expect the 11th answer to be any different.

I had overall less ships than the Krynn so my total military was weaker but it had spread out most of its ships to protect its starbases. So there was no significant force to stand against my 2-3 invasion fleet in his area.

Also the Krynn did send 2 fleets in my area of space with no transport. So while it was annoying to see them destroy one economic starbase after another (I had neglected to keep a fleet back to protect my assets), I was taking down one planet after another fairly quickly. The Krynn influence was so strong at 42X that I had only a few moves before a conquered world flipped back to them. I had to take several worlds that were close together simultaneously in the same move to form an island of my influence. The Krynn's fleet would have been better used taking down first the starbase I setup to reach their worlds, and the ships I was using to attack its worlds.

Each civilization asked me to declare on another civ (many pop-ups). When I finally declared on the Krynn, the civ that kept pestering me to attack them wouldn't take trade calls. So it is somewhat of an annoyance that these civilizations can communicate with me anytime they please but I can't do the same. If one my unarmed ships is about to be destroyed, I'd like to trade it with a civilization for something. That way I can salvage something and that ship won't be destroyed if that civilization isn't at war with the civilization about to attack my ship. I protected my assets via trading before. Those trades are time sensitive.

Requested Option:

1- When one civilization who is encroaching on my ZOC (Krynn for ex) is at war with another civ (ex: Drengin). I would like to have an option to bribe that civilization (Drengin) to destroy that piece of (Krynn) property. I could list the ships, shipyards or star bases of a particular civilization. It could be useful also if I had to negotiate a peace under unfavorable terms. It may not fit with the other AI's strategy but it shouldn't mind destroying stuff belonging to a civ it is at war with. It could also help me guide the A.I in making better strategic moves.

2- If a civilization has asked me to declare war on another, and I am on bad terms with that civilization (for example it's encroaching on me or demanding tributes). I should be able to reveal this to the third party in exchange for something. Make that information a trade item. If they asked me to attack one civilization it is likely the A.I has asked others as well. One civilization asked me to attack a civilization it was trading with.

the thing is that you as player don't have to rely on a diplomatic-evaluation system which will determine if you can go hostile versus someone or not. you can do whatever you want, all options are there for you even against allies or good relations, even if it's harming your own gam emore than supporting it.

the AI is in a totally different position. these popups are ment as an info for you that their relationship with you is somehow suffering. hypothetically, if you would give the AI a warning about his influence being too strong at your territory etc pp, would there be any rating that would go down by it? no, nothing, because you as a player,doesn't have/use such a relationsystem.

although it might be possible to to make it work without such a system but that might be pretty unbalanced (same stuff playing to different rules) and I think it will also pretty hard to code into the AI an understanding of what you want him to do, and to react to this appropriately.

Even if your influence area are not political border there could be diplomatic ways of two empires to agree not to allow armed ships to pass into each others influential borders.

On my opinion there should be several versions of the open borders treaty. Some that only allow non military ships such as unarmed scout and survey ships as well as freighters. One that allow military ship to pass through the area and one that even allow you to freely exploit resources in each others influential space but only mining bases.

Some way of threaten the AI to keep out that also would act as worsening you relations, but also a way of warning an AI to stay out or else option...

I have no direct issues with influential space being a somewhat lucid area of control. If you really want to control it you really need to position military bases at your borders and guard it and enforce "your" space. I really think this can be fun if you play an evil and malevolent race such as Drengin that probably see space as theirs and no one eases.

For other races I don't see how you can ever claim a planet or body without actually exploiting it... first one there is the one with the rights... I mean space is really large and mostly empty. I mainly see the borders as the extent at which you civilian culture would travel on it's own. Any "hostile" takeover by influence can be anything from upright rebellion to a silent transformation of a united population.

There's a need because when they request you remove one of your starbases, you can request they remove one of their own.

Have you ever removed a starbase on the AI's request? Would you ever expect the AI to do so on yours?

Actually I have, on occasion, when I can't reach an area, I purchase a constructor from an A.I living in that area and build a starbase just to reach it. I can't move this constructor anywhere (unless it is to bring it to my zone of space) so I have to build the starbase right where it is when I purchase it. Once I take a planet in that area, I won't need the starbase unless it is well placed to be an economic starbase for my new planet. My new planet can now allow me to reach this previously innaccessible zone of space.

As for the A.I, if it's placed starbases strategically in an area where it is preventing me from constructing an economic starbase to boost several planets simultaneously, for me it's reason enough to remove them and take down that civilization. If the A.I places its starbases in an area where it won't hinder my growth or if it doesn't hog all the ressources I can tolerate them much longer.

Sorry but there's no need to fullquote yourself when you didn't even understand the (already mentioned) arguments against your standpoint, as being evidenced by reply #3 #7 #10

Do you want a system in which the current diplorating of the player is also measured? Which will only allow the player to declare war if that rating is hostile?

the point is not that i need to wait until a certain set of conditions need to happen before i can declare war but that i can communicate with the ai that the actions it is taking are making me consider declaring war, this should cause the ai to reevaluate its location of starbases or ships in order to prevent war if i am stronger then the ai or to choose to ignore my pathetic whining if the ai deems itself to be more powerful

The player's relationship with the AI is entirely up to them - there's no need for the player to be able to let the AI know that they're annoyed with them.

I agree that you are right on this. I am sure the AI is not coded to respond to this and I am not sure it could be, even if Brad or somebody wanted to undertake that mission. Well I'm pretty sure it could be coded in but maybe it would not be high priority. It would probably just lead to a long winded argument with the AI regarding the placement of star bases.

It is more or less just a matter of immersion. It would just make me feel better to respond that way than "the star base is staying right where it is"

the point is not that i need to wait until a certain set of conditions need to happen before i can declare war but that i can communicate with the ai that the actions it is taking are making me consider declaring war, this should cause the ai to reevaluate its location of starbases or ships in order to prevent war if i am stronger then the ai or to choose to ignore my pathetic whining if the ai deems itself to be more powerful

right now there is only a "AI-to-player relationship rating". if the AI demands you to do anything you've got 2 choices:

1) comply. rating will stay unaffected, and in the case of multiple positive factors present the AI won't declare war onto you, will be harder to be influenced to gang up on you, and might also ally to you at some point.

2) ignore. the negative factor will stay and probably prevent all the above advantage, ultimately the AI might go to war against you.

now the point me and others were trying to make is that if you give the player the same methods in his hands you also have to put the same mechanism in place - these mechanisms are are more fundamental or core to the game than the methods itself. as a matter of fact the only reason that AI has the ability to make these complains is get a certain stability into these relationship ratings. Especially for new players who don't know about some of the influencing penalties the game will show them.

but in your scenario a player could demand that the AI removes a starbase, and if the AI complies, still declare war against the AI - which will be weakened beforeahead by its own action. vice versa, if the AI refuses, still be able to ally to the AI (if the conditions are met) because the AI choice to refuse has no negative effect on any rating whatsoever.

this is the reason why, if you want to install such a feature for the player, you have to do it completely and install the underlying rating as well or it won't work.

I agree with Ashbery76, the AI shouldn't be able to use political options that the player does not have.

"It's not a 'political option', it's a player notification - 'this thing you are doing is making me dislike you'." - BigBadB

Does it really matter, I think the point here is that i'd like to do everything that the ai can, that includes telling them to remove ships or star bases from my ZOC before I destroy them. Even if their reply is only measured on their current relationship with me.

Seriously, you don't think you should be able to tell the ai that you are considering an attack. Surely this type of option would enhance immersion.

it would, but it would also weakening the position of the player. someone that likes to have a challenge would always try to hide his intentions, and because GalCiv is a TBS game and NOT a RPG I say to hell with immersion if it leads to cheesy gameplay.

If it's included as an option you can chose when and when not to use it. All I want is the option, I would use it at my discretion to enhance my style of playing. If it's something you wouldn't use then you wouldn't have to.

If you challenge a ship by placing a more powerful one in it's path, it will either run or ignore you. It ignores your ship, it gets attacked. The AI will often beg for peace the next turn. If you are not strong enough to do that, then AI should be pushing you around and would ignore any plea you made. Star bases get bought if I like the civ or destroyed if not. Most of the time all that happens over the next few turns is a worsened relationship.